Scars
by clagjanet
Summary: Francine needs last-minute help and who better to ask than a bored Amanda?


Disclaimer: none of these characters belong to me; they belong to Shoot the Moon Enterprises and Warner Bros to whom I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to take them out for a spin.

* * *

"Oh good, you're here! And that's the _perfect_ outfit!"

Amanda looked up from her desk in confusion at the honest enthusiasm in Francine's voice. Looked up at her, looked back down at her blouse and black slacks and then back up with a raised brow. It didn't seem likely, but Francine actually seemed pleased with her. And approved of her outfit? That was one for the books. Of course, it all became clear immediately what she'd really meant.

"Come with me. We need someone to work in a bar and we've only got 45 minutes to get you in place!"

"Francine, I'm not cleared for field work yet, you know that right? Dr. Kelford…"

"Will not mind if you spend an hour standing behind a bar serving drinks. I already checked."

By now, Amanda's other brow had joined its twin. "You already checked?"

"Amanda," said Francine impatiently. "I know you're still on the non-rotation list, but you're dying to get out of this stuffy office, right? But since I also know that Lee would have my skin if he thought I'd asked you to help with anything that might impede your recovery, yes, I checked."

"Oh"

"Now if you're quite done with waffling, are you going to come help or not?"

Amanda leaned back in her chair, fascinated by this inclusive attitude. "Dr. Kelford really said yes?" She couldn't help the hopeful tone. She _was_ getting sick to death of being cooped up in the office but Lee couldn't complain if she'd been cleared… right?

Francine was nodding and tapping an impatient foot.

"Okay, what do you need me to do?"

Francine's face lit up with her bright smile. "We need to have someone behind the bar at Joey's on M Street wearing a wire. We heard the new Soviet consul has been using cruising the singles bars as a way to have meets off the radar. Ronda just sent word he's going to there this afternoon so we're going to wire you up and let you be the Invisible Woman for an hour. You just need to stand close enough to them for the mic to pick up what they're saying."

Amanda gazed at her shrewdly. "And when you think Invisible Woman, you automatically think me? Why aren't you doing it? I mean, just think what fun you could have spending all that tip money."

To her credit, Francine looked the tiniest bit guilty. "I would but I overdressed today." She looked down at her vivid floral dress and Amanda couldn't help giggling as she stood up.

 _As if Francine didn't overdress every day._

"Fine, let's go."

Francine held up the attaché case in her right hand. "I knew you'd come through so I brought all the equipment with me. You just need to run the wire over your shoulder and under your bra and then I'll connect it to a battery that we'll tape in the small of your back." She handed Amanda the wire and looked at her expectantly.

Amanda looked at it for a moment and then stepped towards the Q Bureau door and locked it. "You're going to need to help me then." She looked up and met Francine's quizzical look. "I didn't wear a front clasp bra today and I can't reach back there without help." She began unbuttoning her blouse while Francine looked at her nonplussed.

"What do you mean, you can't reach?"

"I still don't have full mobility in my right arm and I can't get back there. Physiotherapy's been helping," she explained as she continued to pull off her blouse, "but it's been slow. Anyway, normally Mother helps me dress or I just do it up in the front and shift it around, you know?" She looked up to see Francine nodding. "But I can't do that this time because it'll shift the wire along with it, right?"

As Amanda pulled off her blouse, Francine's gaze dropped to the red puckered scar like a burn on Amanda's chest but barely had time to take it in before Amanda was turning her back, and lifting her hair out of the way. "Okay, you stick it wherever you need it." She stood for a moment before realizing Francine hadn't moved. "Francine?"

Francine gave a start and shook herself before taking the wire and beginning to slide it under Amanda's bra and then starting to tape it into place. She was silent as she went about it, struck dumb by her first sight of the far worse exit wound scar that jagged below Amanda's shoulder blade. Clinically, professionally, she knew the doctors had done a good job of repairing the damage, but aesthetics were never the first thing on their minds in a trauma situation and there were still vivid red marks where the bullet had pulled the skin outwards ripping the skin to shreds because it was moving just _that_ much slower from having traveled through a body – Amanda's body – dragging flesh and splintered bone with it in its path. She could see the tiny suture scars around it where they had pulled the flesh closed, not with that extra fine surgical thread that they used to close up the scrapes of everyday Agency life but the thick wiry kind that they used when they needed to close a gushing wound, a wound that threatened to kill.

She shuddered and paused to close her eyes and take a deep breath.

"Problem?" asked Amanda glancing over her shoulder.

"No, I , uh… I'm just trying to figure out how to tape this to make you less uncomfortable. It needs to stick, but I hate to use too much tape because it stings like a bitch … it hurts when you pull it off."

Amanda gave a knowing laugh. "Oh don't worry about that – I got immune to it when we had to change dressings three times a day. I'm not even sure I've got nerve endings in some spots back there anymore."

Francine's breath hitched a little at how easily Amanda referred to those long weeks in hospital. She remembered what it was like, that moment when they'd heard – she hadn't even believed it at first. _Wow, I never saw that twist coming_ had been her first thought as if Lee was talking about a character in a book. After all, people like _Amanda_ didn't get hurt, didn't almost die – that was something other agents did, not regular people, not annoyingly over-optimistic bubbly people who could smile cheerfully at you and give as good as they got, not brownie-baking, den-mothering, thorn-in-your-side _friends_ people… It had been easy to pretend that Lee's concern for his housewife had been over the top when Amanda was recovering almost 3000 miles away but now, faced with the lingering evidence, it really hit her how serious it had been.

"There you go," she managed to say in almost a normal voice. "Once you get your blouse back on, we'll fix the mike somewhere it can't be seen." She waited for Amanda to get dressed again before beginning to fiddle with attaching the tiny microphone. She didn't look up from her work as she went on in her best attempt at her usual snippy voice. "Hope you didn't lose too many nerve endings back there. I'm sure Lee would be disappointed if you weren't ticklish anymore."

Amanda huffed out a low laugh at the memory of Francine walking out of the vault scarlet-faced at the sight of the two of them poking each other like schoolchildren. "Oh no, it didn't help with that at all. It just left me with a lot of numb skin around the scar. But you must know what that's like." She quirked a brow when Francine's eyes flew up to meet hers in confusion. "From being shot in the leg?"

"Oh that," said Francine dismissively. "That was just a scratch."

Amanda began to laugh. "Just a scratch? Francine, a bullet through your leg isn't just a _scratch_!"

Francine shrugged. "It was just a revolver and it went through without hitting anything major, not a high powered sniper rifle and - " She stopped speaking, unable to finish that thought, and pretended to be absorbed with getting the microphone in place.

"And two months off work lying around eating bonbons and watching my stories?" teased Amanda in a light tone.

"Exactly," said Francine stepping back. "But now you can make up for that slacker attitude with a bit of proper spy work for once. Ready to go?"

Amanda's warm smile told her she'd seen through the jabs, but all she said was, "Ready, Boss. Lead the way."

* * *

From the booth at the back, Lee and Francine had a perfect view of the bar and the Soviet consul as he blithely chatted away in Russian to his contacts right in front of Amanda as she polished glasses and wiped down the bar not a few feet away from him. They had gotten a thumbs up from Dave that everything was being picked up perfectly out in the surveillance van in the back alley.

"You aren't mad that I dragged Amanda into this, are you?" she asked suddenly when Lee had been quiet for longer than normal, keeping an eye on his partner.

"What?" he turned a startled look at her at the worried tone in her voice. "Of course not – she can handle this just fine and we're here to keep an eye on her. What could go wrong?"

She raised a brow and they both grinned at the same time.

"No, I mean it," she went on, sobering again. "I know she's not even supposed to be rostered but I really wouldn't have asked her without getting Doc Kelford's permission first. He said she was fine to do light physical activity like this but when we were wiring her up and I saw the scars -"

"Ah," said Lee in sudden comprehension. He put a hand over hers where she was drumming her fingers nervously on the tabletop and squeezed it. "She's fine. She's tougher than she looks, you know."

"Are you going to feed me that stamina of the housewife line again, Lee? Because it looked -"

"I know better than almost anyone how it looks, Francine." She chanced another look at him at his stern tone of voice, but was relieved to see he was looking at her with an expression of amused exasperation. "I helped change the dressings often enough when she got home."

"Right, of course." She was suddenly flustered, kicking herself for not thinking that line of thought through.

"It looks a lot better now though." She could tell he was smirking behind the rim of his Scotch glass as he waited for her to rise to the bait in that extra bit of information, but for once, all she felt was relief that he could joke about it.

"Well, isn't this a cozy little place you to have here?" She looked up to find Amanda standing by their table with a tray with a look of intense amusement on her face and her eyes alight with laughter. She reached to pick up their glasses, taking the opportunity to say quietly, "Sergei just made a dinner date with the hot redhead at the end of the bar so I think he's done for the evening."

Francine snatched her hand back out from under Lee's, feeling the blush rise at the way Amanda's eyes crinkled further with humour as she did so. She glanced at Lee to see if he was embarrassed at all at being caught holding her hand but he was just smiling up at Amanda. They were doing that thing again, that thing that drove her crazy, where they talked without talking.

"Well if he's done, I guess you're done too. Time to get you back home and out of all that…" his voice dropped suggestively, "eavesdropping equipment."

Francine rolled her eyes as Amanda gave a low chuckle and shot back, "Ah Scarecrow, you still have such a way with the ladies. Maybe you should take a page out of Sergei's book and try and find a hot date for dinner. Although he just tipped me $100 so if you play your cards right, I might treat you to something…special" before strolling away back to the bar, with a wink over her shoulder.

Francine watched Lee silently for a moment, the way his eyes stayed on Amanda, small fond smile on his lips before he turned to look at her, quirking up a brow when he saw she was staring at him. She turned to watch Amanda, back at the bar, looking completely at ease in her cover, chatting easily with the other staff members even though she'd only met them two hours ago, sparkling eyes and slight flush giving no clue that she'd ever been through life-threatening trauma.

"I've always thought it was just luck, you know?" She gave him a quick look under her lashes, then back towards Amanda. "Or a lack of imagination to understand what we really do, but…"

Completely unbidden, she could suddenly hear herself answering a question from Lee years ago.

" _If you could pinpoint the single major reason as to why Amanda King gets to you, what would it be?"_

" _Her complete lack of ... everything."_

She realized Lee was waiting for her to finish her sentence. "But she's really got something, doesn't she?"

If Lee remembered that same conversation, he gave no sign of it, simply relaxing at the realization she wasn't about to take a shot at Amanda. He stood, holding out his hand to help her up, then pulling her in for a brief hug "Yes, that she does." He glanced towards the bar. "You want to come to dinner with us?"

"You're not serious?"

"Of course I am." Hazel eyes twinkled at her, amused by her surprise as he linked his arm through hers. "Come on, one of the things I know about Amanda is that she's got is a hundred bucks just burning a hole in her pocket."


End file.
